Bill Gates: Foreign aid works

Bill and Melinda Gates came to Washington on Tuesday for an elaborate production with a simple but seldom-proclaimed message: Foreign aid works.

“What we’re doing here is a very unusual thing – we’re telling a positive story about government spending on foreign aid,” the Microsoft founder said in an interview with POLITICO ahead of the event. “People … are not aware that the foreign [aid is working]."

Story Continued Below

The event at Sidney Harman Hall, called “Living Proof: Why We Are Impatient Optimists,” will make the case for lawmakers and taxpayers, using videos projected on a 12-foot-high curved screen and accompanied by cinema-style sound.

The audience of 750 is to include lawmakers, opinion leaders, ambassadors, global health officials and journalists.

Gates called his event “a thank you, not a call for an additional investment,” and a chance to salute the impact of such initiatives as the President’s Malaria Initiative, started by President George W. Bush in 2005 and continued by President Barack Obama.

Asked whether Obama or Bush has done better a better job, Gates said: “I give them both an A.”

Gates said he’s anxious to show the investments are working, which is “good news [for] taxpayers.” “People need to know that,” he said.

Among the programs singled out by Living Proof are the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which has helped to deliver 88 million insecticide-treated bednets.

“These investments were made under President Bush, but the Obama administration has come in saying it would increase spending,” he continued. “In order for that to happen when the budget is out of whack, people need to know what impact the money has had.”

Last month, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started the multi-year “Living Proof Project: U.S. Investments in Global Health are Working” to spread evidence that millions of lives are being saved by the U.S. government’s investments in global health initiative to fight malaria, AIDS and other diseases.

Gates, who now devotes himself full time to his philanthropic work, said he decided a few years ago that working with governments — especially the United States — would be critical.

“As generosity went up, the success stories weren’t being told,” he said. “I spend a lot of time talking to influential [people] and they’re not aware that [the foreign aid helps] . … And when the time comes to balance budgets around here, it can take more than a proportionate share of whatever reductions take place.”

Gates said the generosity of the United States “has helped improve health and save lives and bring down population growth, so that money can be spent on all the other things that need investment – economic growth, jobs, and so on.”

Gates also saluted other philanthropists, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and financier George Soros. “An amazing number of people who are doing neat things,” he said.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which dates to 1994, has approximately 780 employees, spread among offices in Seattle, Washington, Beijing and London, with an initiative in Delhi, India. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Asset Trust, which manages the endowment, has assets of $30.2 billion and has made $20.5 billion in commitments since its inception. Grant payments last year totaled $2.8 billion.